Confession: It’s Not Just Mad Men

I have noticed that my life has been increasingly taken over by various television series and I suspect I am not alone in this. After an 18-month hiatus, Mad Men returned Sunday night- but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

First, a tremendous amount of catching up occurred over this past winter and fall. The discovery of every single episode of Mad Men on Netflix was the epiphany. Watching them back-to-back-to-back like that was great fun. Then as you start closing in on the last couple of episodes- a strange sort of depression sets in- like- “Oh my God- what are we going to do now- no Don, no Betty, no Peggy- until…when?”

For Mad Men fans it would be a year and a half of contractual complications with the cast. They made it up to us with a 2-hour season debut Sunday that reminded me all over again how I got addicted to the series in the first place. I am not interested in writing an analysis of the show- but perhaps the most important take-away is that the actress’ name is Jessica Pare, she’s French Canadian and her version of Zou Bisou Bisou is being released on I-tunes today. Ahem- as I was saying– Mad Men was the mere tip of the iceberg.

Game of Thrones filled the Mad Men void for an entertaining couple of weeks but, alas, ended all too soon and led directly to an addiction to Spartacus which was fascinating in its explicit violence and sexuality but also quite sad after learning that the actor who played Spartacus (Andy Whitfield) died after the last season succumbing to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at the young age of 39.

Downton Abbey’s first season soon came to the rescue for a good month’s worth of viewing. Season two did not seem to be available anywhere for free so I felt the need to make a contribution to PBS and had the thing mailed to me.

Homeland, Alcatraz, Smash and Touch have also been extremely helpful in filling the between-seasons voids of Dexter, Weeds and True Blood.

Sometimes, these series all run together in my mind and I can’t remember which character was on what show but this is not a big concern to me during waking hours.

My dreams, however, are extremely odd; gladiator-vampires riding shape-shifters, rushing to the rescue of French-Canadian versions of Marilyn Monroe who is fleeing crazed terrorist Broadway actresses who sell weed on the side to British servants who are investigating the serial killings of escaped convicts from the early 1960’s.

If you followed that at all- welcome to my sick but thoroughly entertaining world.

You’re not alone. It seems we watch the same shows. While I really enjoyed the likes of Homeland and Downton (and Winter can’t come soon enough on HBO), I couldn’t stomach Smash. My wife watches it and I hurl insults at the show when I overhear a particularly brutal piece of writing. Tough to root against Katharine McPhee, though. She’s a pleasant surprise. Very interesting how pay cable like HBO and Showtime keep putting out high-end fare while networks churn out shows like The Cape and The Event. Thank god for HBO. Nice article!